Dorothy Circus Gallery Rome is proud to present to its Roman audience the solo show Only in Dreams by the American artist Brandi Milne, exhibiting for the very first time in Europe.

After the summer break, our gallery resumes its activity with another and exciting chapter of the Turning Page programme: the focus will be once again on the Woman and child-hood, themes this time explored by the established Pop Surrealist artist Brandi Milne.

Strongly influenced by the cartoonish world and music, Brandi Milne has experienced a constant artistic evolution throughout her entire career, developing an accurate and un-mistakable signature style. Disney, Gumby and Pokey, vintage decorations, the music of Elton John and the writings from Jack Kerouac are only a few of her sources of inspira-tion. Her colour palette is recognisable by the bold choice of pink, red, green, and intense blue, and her perfectly balanced brushes sometimes seem to deconstruct the otherwise well defined contours of the characters, both physically and spiritually.

In Only in Dreams, Brandi Milne will present 24 new brand artworks of variable size, be-tween drawings and paintings, depicting children, vintage toys, sweets, and animals, care-fully balancing light and dark elements on candy-gore backgrounds. Female characters are represented with very simple faces and only with eyes, inviting the viewer to project their own image or identity onto the character, allowing for a more personal interaction and connection.

Her surreal drawings and paintings reveal the influence of the artist’s childhood, demon-strating her intense emotions and remarkable understanding of the transition between the cotton padded, sugar coated world we live in as children and our first immersion into the adult world.

Brandi’s subjects embody the feelings and the inner world of a complex artist who has de-fined a personal research focused on the apparent contrast between the tenderness of her protagonists and the strength of the message they carry on. Her obsession with the child realm is interpreted with a profound resistance to transitioning into adulthood, where re-alities becomes synonym of pain and suffering. By holding onto sweet childhood memo-ries, Milne’s art codes takes refuge in a happiness that is intrinsic to our youth.

Tapping into our subconscious Brandi’s works will also disclose a bittersweet message re-lated to themes of anxiety, fear and loss. Loyal to the imaginary that has characterised and defined our childhood, Milne will lead the visitor into her playful dichotomous world, compelling the observer to face the absurdities and the paradox of life, embodied in the anguished shocking pink.